Citation: Allen RS, Olsen TW, Sayeed I, et al. Progesterone treatment in two rat models of ocular ischemia. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2015;56:2880-2891. DOI:10.1167/iovs.14-16070 PURPOSE. To determine whether the neurosteroid progesterone, shown to have protective effects in animal models of traumatic brain injury, stroke, and spinal cord injury, is also protective in ocular ischemia animal models.METHODS. Progesterone treatment was tested in two ocular ischemia models in rats: a rodent anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (rAION) model, which induces permanent monocular optic nerve stroke, and the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model, which causes transient ischemia in both the retina and brain due to an intraluminal filament that blocks the ophthalmic and middle cerebral arteries. Visual function and retinal histology were assessed to determine whether progesterone attenuated retinal injury in these models. Additionally, behavioral testing and 2% 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining in brains were used to compare progesterone's neuroprotective effects in both retina and brain using the MCAO model. RESULTS.Progesterone treatment showed no effect on visual evoked potential (VEP) reduction and retinal ganglion cell loss in the permanent rAION model. In the transient MCAO model, progesterone treatment reduced (1) electroretinogram (ERG) deficits, (2) MCAO-induced upregulation of glutamine synthetase (GS) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and (3) retinal ganglion cell loss. As expected, progesterone treatment also had significant protective effects in behavioral tests and a reduction in infarct size in the brain. CONCLUSIONS.Progesterone treatment showed protective effects in the retina following MCAO but not rAION injury, which may result from mechanistic differences with injury type and the therapeutic action of progesterone.
Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) using the intraluminal suture technique is a common model used to study cerebral ischemia in rodents. Due to the proximity of the ophthalmic artery to the middle cerebral artery, MCAO blocks both arteries, causing both cerebral and retinal ischemia. While previous studies have shown retinal dysfunction at 48 hours post-MCAO, we investigated whether these retinal function deficits persist until 9 days and whether they correlate with central neurological deficits. Rats received 90 minutes of transient MCAO followed by electroretinography at 2 and 9 days to assess retinal function. Retinal damage was assessed with cresyl violet staining, immunohistochemistry for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and glutamine synthetase, and TUNEL staining. Rats showed behavioral deficits as assessed with neuroscore that correlated with cerebral infarct size and retinal function at 2 days. Two days after surgery, rats with moderate MCAO (neuroscore < 5) exhibited delays in electroretinogram implicit time, while rats with severe MCAO (neuroscore ≥ 5) exhibited reductions in amplitude. Glutamine synthetase was upregulated in Müller cells 3 days after MCAO in both severe and moderate animals, however, retinal ganglion cell death was only observed in MCAO retinas from severe animals. By 9 days after MCAO, both glutamine synthetase labeling and electroretinograms had returned to normal levels in moderate animals. Early retinal function deficits correlated with behavioral deficits. However, retinal function decreases were transient and selective retinal cell loss was observed only with severe ischemia, suggesting that the retina is less susceptible to MCAO than the brain. Temporary retinal deficits caused by MCAO are likely due to ischemia-induced increases in extracellular glutamate that impair signal conduction, but resolve by 9 days after MCAO.
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